Creation Day 2025

September 1, 2025 is the annual ecumenical celebration of Creation Day This tradition was initiated by the Orthodox Church in 1989 and later embraced by other bodies such as the World Council of Churches in 2008 and the Catholic Church in 2015. The theme for 2025 is Seeds of Peace and Hope.

The Season of Creation starts September 1st and ends October 4th, the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of ecology. Following the inspiration of Pope Francis and the newly-elected Pope Leo XIV, the Integral Ecology movement "will continue to bring to the heart of the Universal Church the hopes and concerns of the local churches to build bridges between all and to build a more just, more peaceful and fraternal world."

May 24, 2025, was the tenth anniversary of Pope Francis' publishing “Laudato sì,” his social encyclical on the theme of integral ecology, as a new paradigm of justice. On May 20, 2025, Pope Leo XIV sent a video message to the Network of Universities for the Care of Our Common Home, and encouraged their synodal reflection ahead of COP30. The "Network of Universities for the Care of Our Common Home" is a global initiative, primarily within the Catholic Church, focused on integrating environmental sustainability and social justice into university curricula and campus practices.

Science informs us that creation is an ongoing process that started at least 13.7 billion years ago. One does not need to take the biblical story of creation literally nor believe in a supernatural, interventionist "sky God" to honor the sacredness and care of all creation and life, and our relational wholeness.

#Laudatosì